The Classic Gable Takes a New Turn

Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron call the gable type the “ur-type” of house, and they’ve abstracted it into residential and other commissions, including the Parrish Art Museum in Long Island, New York. A job that incorporates the same form is VitraHaus, a five-story showroom for Vitra — the Korean furniture company famous for producing modern and contemporary designs from the likes of Charles and Ray Eames, Jean Prouvé and also the Bouroullec brothers — in its own campus at Weil am Rhein, Germany.

One way of describing the undertaking is “crazy gables”; it is a job that certainly would fit right into my preceding ideabook onto gables with gap, since the forms overlap one another in an apparently random configuration. Inside the seamless spaces created by the overlapping and piling work remarkably well, exhibiting Vitra’s furnishings from homelike settings, with the environment framed by glass walls in the conclusion of each space.

This ideabook partnerships within the VitraHaus to find out what can be heard from Herzog & de Meuron’s manipulation of the ur-type, among the most durable and malleable forms in architecture.

John Hill

The building can be approached from several directions — from the parking lot, the the street — and in each case it presents a similar look in addition to a portal to an interior plaza along with the building’s primary entry. The glass ends hint in the viewpoints in the showrooms, each one pointing in another direction.

John Hill

In the center of the building is an open space, a plaza that’s adjacent to the primary entry. Seeing a hot and humid day, I can say this space did a good job in heating … but the darkened surfaces have the contrary impact at night, when warmth radiates from them.

John Hill

The seating is a nice touch. Produced from horizontal wood slats that hit from the floor to the ceiling, the small inflection from the walls makes for a comfortable place to just hang out.

John Hill

The lights occupying the central space are extremely important, given the minimum treatment of the many surfaces. Their size is right to the space, and their shape displays the same multidirectionality as the building, as if they are reaching out this way and that way. Furthermore, their form is a fitting contrast to the dark and simple surfaces.

John Hill

This window seems to serve solely to provide a close-up view of the light fixture to all those interior.

John Hill

The architects ought to be commended for building anticipation throughout the inside. Often the windows in the conclusion of each gable-shaped volume are visible from afar, but it is not until we are near that we grasp them in their entirety.

John Hill

The views through some of those windows take in the lovely Tüllinger Hills, a acceptable backdrop for trying out some of the furniture. Notice the way the curtains on the side are cut in an angle; if they are closed, the base edge is level with the floor.

John Hill

In another space, with the curtains drawn, the view has another shape — horizontal and reduced, to frame the horizon.

John Hill

Planters in the bases of the chimney behave like continuations of the landscape out, a great touch that visually connects inside and out.

John Hill

In another area plants operate in a similar manner, visually connecting the inside and the outside. This result is reinforced by floral wallpaper.